py tidings were confirmed, and the infant--their future king,
as they undoubtingly hailed him--was presented to their view, their joy
broke forth in such vociferous acclamations that it became necessary to
silence them by an appeal to them to show consideration for the mother's
weakness.

For the next three months all was joy and festivity. When the little Duc
d'Angouleme, now a sprightly boy of six years old, was taken into the
nursery to see, or, in the court language, to pay his homage to, the heir
to the throne, he said to his father, as he left the room, "Papa, how
little my cousin is!" "The day will come, my boy," replied the count,
"when you will find him quite great enough." And it seemed as if the whole
nation, and especially the city of Paris, thought no celebration of the
birth of its future king could be too sumptuous for his greatness. It was
a real heart-felt joy that was awakened in the people. On the day
following the birth, chroniclers of the time remarked that no other
subject was spoken of; that even strangers stopped one another in the
streets to exchange congratulations.[5]

The different trades and guilds led the way in the expression of these
loyal felicitations. When his royal highness was a week old, he held a
grand reception. Deputations from different bodies of artisans, each with
a band of music at its head, and each carrying some emblem of its
occupation, marched in a long procession to Versailles. The chimney-sweeps
bore aloft a chimney entwined with garlands, on the top of which was
perched one of the smallest of their boys; the chairmen carried a chair
superbly gilt, on which sat in state a representative of the royal nurse,
with a child in her arms in royal robes; the butchers drove a fat ox; the
pastry-cooks bore on a splendid tray a variety of pastry and sweetmeats
such as might tempt children of a larger growth than the little prince
they had come to honor; the blacksmiths beat an anvil in time to their
cheers; the shoe-makers brought a pair of miniature boots; the tailors had
devoted elaborate and minute pains to the embroidering of a uniform of the
dauphin's regiment, such as might even now fit its young colonel, if his
parents would permit him to be attired in it. The crowd was too great to
be received in even the largest saloon of the palace; but it filled the
court-yard beneath; and, as the weather was luckily favorable, the dauphin
was brought to the balcony and displayed to the